Considerations and Comments

Before we alter the
FoodMart Sales cube to support our hierarchical date prompts, we will
create a copy of the cube. Creating a clone of the sample Sales cube means
we can make changes to our cube while retaining the original sample in a
pristine state - perhaps for other purposes, such as using it to accompany
relevant sections of the Books Online, and other documentation, in
learning more about Analysis Services in general. (Once we finish with our
structural changes to the clone cube, we will create a copy of the Foodmart
Sales report, for the same reasons.)

Before we can work
with a clone of the Foodmart Sales report, we need to create a Reporting
Services project in the Visual Studio.Net 2003 Report Designer
environment. Making the enhancements to the report to add the requested
functionality can be done easily within the Reporting Services Report
Designer environment. Working with a copy of the report will allow us the
luxury of freely exploring our options, and leave us a working example of the
specific approach we took, to which we can refer in our individual business
environments. This approach also preserves the original sample in a pristine
state - for the same reasons we do so for the Sales sample cube. If you
already have a project within which you like to work with training or
development objects, you can simply skip the Create a Reporting Services
Project section.

If the sample FoodMart
2000 Analysis Services database or the Foodmart Sales report was not
created / installed as part of the initial installation of the associated
application, if either was removed prior to your beginning this article, or if
either or both applications have yet to be installed, etc., see the respective Books
Online or other documentation for the necessary procedures to prepare
for the exercises that follow.

Hands-On Procedure

Preparation

Create
a Clone of the Foodmart Sales Cube

Let's
first create a copy of the existing FoodMart Sales cube to provide a "disposable"
work environment.

1.
Open Analysis
Manager.

2.
Expand the Analysis
Server folder in the management console.

3.
Expand the Analysis
Server with which you are working by clicking the "+" sign to its
left.

4.
Expand the FoodMart
2000 database.

5.
Expand the Cubes
folder inside the FoodMart 2000 database.

6.
Right-click
the Sales cube.

7.
Click Copy
from the context menu that appears, as shown in Illustration 1.

Illustration 1: Select
Copy from the Context Menu

8.
Right-click
the Cubes folder.

9.
Select Paste
from the context menu that appears, as depicted in Illustration 2.

Illustration 2: Select
Paste, after Right-clicking the Cubes Folder

The Duplicate
Name dialog appears.

10.
Rename the new
cube as follows:

Param_Support_Sales

TIP:

This is also a good way
to rename MSAS objects for which a "Rename" option
does not exist. We simply create the new object in the manner shown above,
give it the desired name, and discard the original object, as appropriate.

Keep in mind that, in
the case of cubes and other structural objects, this will mean reprocessing
before the clone will be fully usable.

The Duplicate
Name dialog appears as shown in Illustration 3.

Illustration 3:
Duplicate Name Dialog with Our Input

11.
Click OK to
create the clone cube.

The
new Param_Support_Sales cubeappears in the tree as depicted in Illustration
4.